Apps in space

Posted at 1:55 PM on February 25, 2013 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Science

There are no molecules in space, being a vacuum and all, so sound can't travel. Now scientists have created a satellite out of a smartphone to see if that's really true.

The engineers at the University of Surrey's Space Centre and Surrey Satellite Technology made the satellite out of a Google Nexus phone. It was launched, along with six other satellites, in India today.

And, again, we see the new face of space pioneers in this live feed from the Strand-1 mission control center.

The satellite, err, phone, will take pictures and post them on this Facebook page.

It will also scream in space. Or, more accurately, play the scream of terrestrials, who uploaded them via the Internet.

Like this one from a sixth-grade class...

Or this from science teacher Richard Barrington of California.

Mr. Barrington, by the way, died not long after being one of the winning entries in the "scream in space" contest.

Anyway, during the mission, the screams will be played by the phone and monitor whether anything comes out of the onboard speaker.

You can follow the updates via Twitter, and the Surrey Space Centre Facebook page.

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Comments (2)

I'm glad to see someone spending science dollars to see if the marketing slogan for "Aliens" is true or not.

If they discover that yes, you CAN hear someone scream is space, I hope they will call it the Nostromo Effect.

Posted by Robert Moffitt | February 25, 2013 2:21 PM

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//There are no molecules in space, being a vacuum and all, so sound can't travel.

Very few molecules in 'space', creating/being the closet thing to a vacuum in nature.

Nits picked. :)

Posted by BJ | February 25, 2013 3:08 PM

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